1 4 May 2004

News:

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is targeting websites to ensure they protect consumers’ personal information. An FTC April 21 release alleged that, Tower Records’ website, www.towerrecords.com, exposed customers’ personal information to other users. Following revisions to its website, Tower had introduced a security vulnerability which allowed Tower customers to access records of other customers’ orders, including names, billing addresses, email and phone contact details. The website’s privacy policy, however, claimed that “state-of-the-art” technology would safeguard such information.

The decision in Johnson v Medical Defence Union Ltd, the first subject access request case to be heard post-Durant, makes a European challenge to the UK implementation of the Data Protection Directive more likely according to data protection experts.

A group of information professionals is planning an Autumn launch for a national organistion, the National Association for Information Management (NAIM). The eight founding members have set themselves a target to create an organisation which will provide guidance for both private and public sectors on information governance.

Features:

As everybody knows, the European Union has just got bigger. Ten new countries have increased the number of Member States to 25 - half the amount of states in the USA, but several times more diverse. Some months ago, people were emphasising the difference between the ‘Old Europe’ and the ‘New Europe’ (the UK being part of the latter). I guess that now we will either need to add a different category called the ‘Really New Europe’ or the ten new members will need to choose on which side they want to be.

In the first case considering the question of compliance with a subject access request since Durant, the court’s narrow interpretation of that decision risks the UK being found non-compliant with the 1995 Directive.

The events at Soham and the subsequent controversy over the rules applied by the Humberside Police for the retention of data focussed attention on the Data Protection Code issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). This Code is now under review by a Home Office Working Group. Nigel Wildish, Partner of Field Fisher Waterhouse, draws attention to a number of issues which need to be reviewed.

Data Protection laws and regulations are some of the key pieces of legislation with which direct marketers have to comply. In this article James Milligan, Legal and Public Affairs Adviser, The Direct Marketing Association (UK), looks at what is considered to be direct marketing and what an organisation has to do to comply with data protection legislation.

Developing a management model for promoting privacy is a challenge whichever side of the Atlantic you are based. Richard Purcell, CEO of Corporate Privacy Group and former Chief Privacy Officer for Microsoft sets out the model that he has developed to address the privacy challenges facing organisations.

The growth of outsourcing to India has raised concerns about the protection of data once exported. The lack of national legislation and the reliance on contractual terms is seen as a barrier to the development of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. In this article Sakate Khaitan from Indian law firm ALMT Legal looks at the prospects forlegislation.